


Look at you

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-13 00:19:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18021254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: The first time Regina falls asleep against Emma. Asked by emettkaysworld via tumblr





	Look at you

**Author's Note:**

> This was quite tricky not because of the prompt itself but because I have several ideas in which Regina could have first fallen asleep against Emma. And while I think that, in a sense, it could have been more filled with longing if I had decided to pick a scene slightly further down the line –another option was to write this on the first stakeout they did, at s3b- I liked the idea of going back to Neverland and have Regina’s reluctant approach of her slowly finding that Emma is someone she can rely on. Especially if we take into account that 3x11 was definitely the dead of us all.
> 
> So yeah XD Set in Neverland, probably in one of the many nights we like to think they had

The disembodied hoots and growls of the jungle around them were quieter now than when they had first reached the shore of the island but when Regina opened her eyes she found them ricocheting inside of her just as the sound of one close-by river coiled around the last strands of unconsciousness she had been able to fall into what felt less than a minute ago. Frowning at how she had fallen asleep despite the ache on her muscles and the still present throbbing of her temples where the electrical waves had dug their teeth onto her, the brunette remained half-seated against the fallen tree-trunk she had laid down when they had settled for the night a few hours ago.

Her eyes were still bleary; smudging the corners of the dying campfire a few feet away from her, the distant warmth of the now whispering flames and glowing embers barely enough to reach her on weak waves. Still, she felt strangely content, her right side warmer and pressed against something soft. She could feel the jittery energy of her magic bleeding out of her fingers; Neverland’s ancient and wild magic a very different taste from the unreliable power Storybrooke had and despite the tranquility the fire and the scattered sleeping bodies around the campfire created, her mind went back again and again to her son, her little prince, alone and possibly injured, that laid hidden in some similar clearing of this nightmarish place.

She clenched her jaw, the nagging feeling of needing to move, to keep searching, fighting, growing within her the longer she kept awake. She had reluctantly agreed to keep alongside the group of idiots, the screams and angry words thrown into the angry sea a few hours ago enough to make her dubious but set on the fact that walking throughout the island alone wasn’t the most diligent choice. Yet, she still had her doubts, written on the pad of her thumb where her finger had pressed again and again against the ring she had been playing with ever since they had sat down; no plan and no way to truly go into the maze the trees created.

She moved and rose her eyes as she felt a second movement rippling through her, a soft murmur making her glance at her side, towards the source of the warmth only to part her lips in utter disbelief at the sight that greeted her, the sudden and blinding realization of the magic she had felt quietly nibbling her own making sense all of a sudden.

Emma’s eyes were closed, eyelids fluttering and trembling and her neck was arched in an angle that would probably mean pain in a few hours. Arms crossed in front of her and back flushed against the tree in very much the same fashion Regina’s was, the brunette couldn’t remember when Emma had sat next to her, the foggy memory of the blonde walking to her and trying to make her talk with a shy smile curving her lips the last thing she was truly able to conjure. Which, she thought as she felt Emma’s untrained magic kept on reaching for hers, was bad enough.

Still, she couldn’t find on herself enough strength to move away; not even when the word “weak” kept on rising within her, the echo multiplied tenfold by her mother’s voice, so fresh to her that she could only wince. She was far too tired, pain making her spiral downwards and Emma’s presence –as much as she felt bitter distrust and the distant screams of another conversation ringing on her ears,  _“No, he is not, he is mine!”-_ felt almost like a balm despite her many tries to latch onto the anger that she had been feeding on for so long she couldn’t quite pinpoint when that had started.

Or maybe, a voice, a gentle one, reminiscent of Daniel’s, whispered to her, maybe she knew.

Pressing her lips together, the blazer she wore suddenly far too heavy on her shoulders, the lingering saltpeter smell that clung to Emma’s skin floated towards her, coiling around her head in making her swallow thickly. She needed to move, to strangle Pan, to save her little boy and yet Emma’s breathing seemed to beckon her; the puffs of air that escaped her lips making her look so very much similar to the boy himself, the soft edges around her face making Regina think of another night, not so long ago, with Emma following her outside of granny’s, the light golden around her and just utter trust on her features.

The same trust glimmering on green eyes when Emma had screamed at them in the middle of the storm, jumping off the boat in one last attempt, strength and stubbornness what had rolled off her a second before her body had been swallowed by the angry, towering waves. And Regina, as much as she still kept on trying to be angry at the woman that had been fated to be her demise, she had felt her whole body freeze as the spell created by anger had disappeared from within her.

Anger that kept on flickering out, erased and buried inside her chest and, with no one looking, with the glowing embers as her only witnesses, she closed her eyes and squared her shoulders before burrowing herself into Emma’s side.

She would not question this, not for the night.

And so, she fell asleep once more.


End file.
